Animosity is the biggest killer on the roads

Share via

Astonishing footage released yesterday showed bus driver Gavin Hill using his
bus “as a weapon” to mow down a cyclist he had been arguing with on the
streets of Bristol.

The cyclist was left with a broken leg and a crushed bike in a layby 10 yards
away, and the driver has been sentenced
to 17 months in jail for dangerous driving and causing grievous bodily
harm, in what he described as “a moment of madness”.

Both drivers and cyclists on the roads like to claim that they are more sinned
against than sinning, but it must be noted that, in a clash between a driver
encased in a 2-tonne car and a cyclist perched on a 20kg bicycle, the
consequences of misbehaving are very different for the two parties.

During The Times’s
‘Cities safe for cycling’ campaign, the overwhelmingly
positive response from all road users has been tempered by a small but
significant number of drivers whose instinctive anger towards cyclists has
led them to dismiss the campaign’s aim to make the streets safer for all
road users.

One reader commented online: “At pedestrian crossings, I have been narrowly
missed several times recently (and many times over the years) by cyclists
either ignoring the lights altogether or setting off before the green is
shown. That is when I get aggressive or as confrontational as it is possible
to be, as the target of my shouting disappears at speed holding two fingers
behind his back.”

While such comments make an entirely valid point about the need for cyclists
to behave well on the roads, being “aggressive and confrontational” around
cyclists when driving a car is to ignore a point made by lawyer Colm Nugent,
who wrote in The Times this week: “The assumption of the courts seems
to be that the reckless actions of motorists and cyclists have the same
impact on the road and that they are therefore in an equal position as road
users. Plainly, they are not.

“For cyclists, the forfeit for jumping a red light or waiting in the wrong
place next to an HGV at stationary traffic may well be death. The vehicle
driver who speeds or fails to check their mirror and collides with a cyclist
may get penalty points, but is unlikely to be injured — and the statistics
show that they are not going to face serious criminal penalties either.

“But the cyclist they have just hit, who may have committed no greater sin
than they have, could be dead beneath their wheels.”

A cyclist who dangerously jumps a red light or weaves recklessly in front of
larger vehicles can be extremely annoying for drivers and is hugely
inconsiderate. Cyclists who like to depict all drivers as aggressive and
belligerent must also remember that the trauma of killing or seriously
injuring a cyclist can ruin your life as a driver, as lorry driver Steve
James described in The Times last week.

But however annoying that reckless cyclist in front of your car may be, it is
still their life that hangs in the balance. They are foolish to be
putting their life on the line — and part of The Times’s
campaign calls for better behaviour and better training for cyclists to use
the road responsibly — but we would also call for a degree of tolerance from
drivers and a realisation that, in a crash, there is usually only one
victim, whoever’s fault it was in the first place.

We would therefore ask drivers, cyclists and pedestrians alike to sign up to
the ‘Cities fit for
cycling’ campaign to promote more than simply the cyclist’s right
to be on the road. The streets should be a place for all to share
responsibly, setting aside the animosity and hatred that can fuel incidents
like those in the shocking video above.